


Line and Wire

by sevenfists



Series: Weight and Motion [4]
Category: Firefly, Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-31
Updated: 2007-05-31
Packaged: 2018-10-19 06:39:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10634358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfists/pseuds/sevenfists
Summary: It started right around his birthday—or, it started earlier than that, but he didn't pay any attention to it until his birthday, late January, because that meant it was almost February, which meant he'd been there for an entire year: a whole year in a strange place, away from Sam. Not so strange anymore, which was hardest: that he'd adjusted to it, that he belonged where he was. Wherever that was.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to sanyin for fixing my Chinese, and to mcee for fixing my schmoop. (No seriously, it was so much worse.)

It started right around his birthday—or, it started earlier than that, but he didn't pay any attention to it until his birthday, late January, because that meant it was almost February, which meant he'd been there for an entire year: a whole year in a strange place, away from Sam. Not so strange anymore, which was hardest: that he'd adjusted to it, that he belonged where he was. Wherever that was.

A year meant he'd missed Sam's birthday, twelve oil changes for the car, the seasons changing, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, all the touchpoints that had made his life a known quantity, something he understood. A few months was one thing; a year meant he'd changed, meant that things were irrevocable. He was older. He had new scars, new clothes. Sometimes he wondered if Sam would even recognize him.

It itched in him, a sense of things lost, things changed. The morning before his birthday, he was so surly that Mal threw up his arms and stomped upstairs, leaving Dean to his own devices. Dean sulked in the cargo bay for a while, cleaning his guns—one familiar thing, the same motions he'd repeated in a hundred motel rooms all across the US. A whole dead country, now; a whole dead planet, as far as he knew. He'd stopped digging after he'd learned the basics. It was too hard to read those dry, clinical words describing the destruction of everything he'd known.

He went to find Mal after a while, his fingers stained black with gun oil. "Sorry," he said gruffly, more out of force of habit than any real desire to apologize. He'd gotten good at smoothing things over with Mal.

"You done bein' mad at me for no reason?" Mal asked, settling the kettle on the stove.

"Yeah," Dean said. He took Mal's cup from the counter and rolled it between his palms.

"You want some tea?" Mal asked.

Dean set the cup back on the counter. "Okay," he said.

The day of his birthday, he played with the baby, harassed Kaylee while she made him a cake, had some truly amazing sex with Mal in the armchair in Mal's bunk, accepted everyone's good-natured ribbing over dinner. It was ordinary. It was everything he'd come to expect, everything that was familiar to him now, but through it all he was thinking about his birthday the year before, how he'd spent the morning after puking in the bathroom while Sam laughed at him and threw balled-up toilet paper at his head.

He lay awake for hours that night, listening to the quiet noises Mal made in his sleep, staring up at the familiar curve of the ceiling and wondering if he'd been wrong—if he could never really move on from it, the constant absence of Sam.

He moped for days, hiding in his dusty and long-unused bunk, drinking too much, playing airplane with Kaylee's baby instead of helping Zoe with inventory. He ran laps through the ship late at night, along the main corridor between the cockpit and the engine room, down the stairs through the passenger dorms and the cargo bay, and then up again, over and over, his shoes making muffled thuds against the metal grating.

Mal let him get away with it for a while, but after a week or so he cornered Dean in the bathroom, when Dean was still in his boxers after a shower, his hair wet and his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth.

"Zoe says you ain't been doin' inventory with her," Mal said, leaning his hip against the countertop, much too close to Dean for comfort.

Dean shrugged, spit toothpaste foam into the sink. "Yeah, so what," he said.

"You don't earn your keep, I _will_ put you out at the next port," Mal said.

They both knew it was a lie, but Dean understood the intent there: he had to pull his weight. "So put me out," he said, the expected response.

Mal broke the script, though, and just stood there looking at Dean, his arms crossed.

"What," Dean said, shifting under Mal's gaze, the back of his neck going hot.

"It's been a year," Mal said. "Since you, uh. Since you got here."

"Yup," Dean said. He gave up on the whole brushing his teeth idea and rinsed the brush beneath the tap. "A whole year. And now I can even speak Chinese."

"Jayne's been tellin' you lies again," Mal said, and then ran a hand through his hair. "I don't—that ain't what I meant to say."

"So what'd you mean to say, then," Dean said.

"I know it ain't been easy for you," Mal said. "And maybe you've been thinkin' on—the things you lost. But you sulkin' around the ship like this don't help matters any."

Dean set his toothbrush back in the cup. "Yeah, well. I don't know what you expect me to do. It's been a year."

"I know," Mal said. He put a hand on Dean's waist, leaned in and kissed him, slow and wet. He pulled back and kissed the corner of Dean's mouth, the ridge of cheekbone right beneath his eye. "Come back to bed."

"I just got up," Dean said.

"Not like you've been sleepin' much," Mal said.

It was true. "Naps are for chicks," Dean said.

"Who said anything about a nap," Mal said, his fingers teasing at the waistband of Dean's shorts.

Dean smirked. "Yeah, okay."

He slept, though, wrapped in Mal's sheets, Mal humming softly while he sat on the edge of the bed and cleaned his guns. Dean woke up once, opened his eyes and Mal was watching him, his hands full of metal.

"What time is it," Dean mumbled.

"Go back to sleep," Mal said, and Dean did.

He woke up for good a little after noon, the time flashing green at him from the clock by Mal's bed. Mal was gone. Most of Dean's clothes were in Mal's closet; he got dressed and went up to the kitchen. He heard happy shouting coming from the cargo bay, but otherwise the ship was quiet, everyone busy with their lives.

Zoe was sitting at the kitchen table, segmenting the last of the shriveled oranges they'd picked up on Horus. "Captain said you'd be up," she said.

"Oh yeah? Where's he at?" Dean asked, scratching his belly.

"Ship yard," Zoe said. "We're on Avalon."

"Huh," Dean said. He pulled out a chair and sat down across from Zoe. "When'd that happen?"

"Wasn't planned," Zoe said. "The engine started smoking. Mal and Kaylee are out looking for parts."

"Kaylee pitched a fit, huh," Dean said.

Zoe smiled. "That she did. Captain didn't used to give in to her quite so easy."

"I've softened him up," Dean said.

"That you have," Zoe said. She handed Dean an orange slice. "Haven't seen you much, lately."

Dean shrugged. "Yeah, well. It's my goddamn bottomless grief. You know how it is."

"I know," Zoe said, and gave him another piece of orange.

He went out after lunch, intending to wander around the port, maybe buy a new sheath for his favorite knife, but he wasn't fifteen feet from the ship when he heard Kaylee calling his name, and he turned, smiling.

Kaylee wasn't smiling, though—she looked scared, and Mal's eyebrows were drawn close together, one hand resting on his gun.

"What's going on," Dean said.

Mal closed his free hand around Dean's elbow as he went by, yanking Dean toward the ship. "Trouble," he said. " _Hen duo ma fan_. We're leavin'."

"Why—what happened," Dean said. "Quit grabbin' me, Jesus."

"Shut up and get on the gorram boat," Mal said.

Kaylee ran up the ramp ahead of them, calling for Simon. Dean looked behind him as Mal shoved him into the ship, but he didn't see anything—just the ordinary port traffic, people heading to the market, a low cloud of dust rising along the main thoroughfare.

"River, get us off-world!" Mal bellowed, his voice echoing through the cargo bay—pointlessly, because the engine was already cutting on, the ramp lifting, the doors closing; and then they were lifting off, a smooth but still noticeable rise.

"What on earth happened," Simon said, jogging Miriam on his hip.

Mal dropped his hand from his gun, finally. "I don't know," he said.

***

"So it was invisible, and it was killin' people," Jayne said. "You sure you ain't been drinkin'?"

"Jayne! He wasn't _addled_ ," Kaylee said. "I was right there with him, and I saw the same thing—you don't think I been drinkin', do you?"

Jayne glanced at Miriam, who was happily sucking away at Kaylee's left tit. "No," he muttered.

"Now that we've established that I ain't a drunkard, maybe we could get down to the business of eatin' dinner," Mal said.

"Amen," Simon said, reaching for the tofu.

"It must be hard to witness an invisible murder," Zoe said. "I feel for you, sir."

"Gimme the beans," Mal said. "Zoe, I am gonna keel-haul you for insubordination."

"Sir, these empty threats will undermine your authority," Zoe said, and everyone laughed except Mal, who glowered at his potatoes.

Dean laughed, too, but his heart wasn't in it. Invisible things killing people—it sure as hell sounded like it was something supernatural, and God only knew what kind of crazy-ass nonsense was running around out on the rim planets. After Lusei, and everything that happened with Kaylee, he maybe should have figured that there was more out in the black than just moons and spaceships, but he hadn't: he'd just sunk back into learning the easy rhythms of pulling jobs, bickering with River, learning the place he was in. It was all flooding back, though, everything he'd been ignoring, everything he was born to do.

That night, lying in bed with Mal, he said, "Tell me what you saw."

Mal rolled over, putting his back to Dean, and switched off the lamp. "They're all makin' light, but I ain't ever seen a thing like it."

"What was it," Dean murmured, resting one hand onto Mal's hip. The darkness made things closer, more intimate. Dean listened to Mal's breathing, and to the low hum of the ship's engine, whirring away through the night.

"Don't know," Mal said. "We was lookin' at engine parts, and I heard screamin'—and Avalon don't usually see that sort of trouble, but a woman came runnin' out of a shop, her hands all bloody. And then some men ran in there, but they got blocked in the doorway, and somethin' slit their throats—looked like with a knife, but there weren't nothin' there. So then we got out."

"Huh," Dean said. He curled closer, sliding an arm around Mal's waist, his mouth pressed against the back of Mal's neck. They fell asleep like that, breathing together inside the metal hull.

The next day, he pulled out Dad's journal for the first time in months, flipped through the creased, stained pages. Toward the end of the notebook, his own loose scrawl started appearing, and then Sam's cramped, careful writing. _June 4, poltergeist, Louisville. August 10, Dean ate the burger. Food poisoning, of course._

"Smartass," Dean muttered. He remembered that: they'd been in Provo, and he'd thrown up non-stop for three days.

He forced himself to stop reading Sam's notes and flipped back through the rest of the journal, looking for anything that matched what Mal had told him. He knew about daevas, and that ghosts sometimes made themselves invisible, but he was looking for something else—something that would kill at random in a bustling, public place.

It didn't matter what it was, though; Avalon was far behind them by then, and knowing Mal, it would no doubt be months before they went back, if ever. That was the problem: they were too mobile for Dean to do any real hunting, which took time, and the ability to go where he was needed.

He sighed, shut the journal, went to find Mal.

"No," Mal said. "Absolutely not."

"We aren't that far out yet," Dean said. "We could turn around. Just gimme a few hours to poke around, see if I can—"

"No," Mal said. "We got an _actual_ job on Glaucus, that pays real money. Ain't got time for you to go runnin' around lookin' for ghosts."

"That kid _died_ ," Dean said. "I know you saw it."

"Ain't our concern," Mal said, like that was the end of it.

Dean scowled. "Shit, Mal. After what happened with Kaylee—you said you believed me, I don't know why the fuck you won't just—"

"It ain't that I don't believe you," Mal said. "And I know you got your hero thing. But my first concern is my crew. We need gas, food, things that keep us flyin'. Given the choice between an honest job and chasin' after a _you ling_ on a moon where we don't know folk, don't owe a thing to nobody—well, that ain't even a choice."

"Well," Dean said. He rubbed a hand over his chin. "Guess I can't argue with that."

"It's past," Mal said, gently, no doubt trying to be kind. "That ain't your life anymore."

Dean cringed to hear those words.

They were on Glaucus the next day.

"You're stayin' on the boat," Mal said.

"I am?" Dean asked.

"It's a three-man job," Mal said. "Plus I need you here to look after Kaylee."

"Plus you don't want me getting any more ideas," Dean said.

Mal shrugged, unapologetic. "That's part of it."

"Fine," Dean said. "I hope you get shot in the nuts." He stomped up the stairs toward the cockpit, not waiting to hear Mal's response.

River was swiveling in her chair. "He's worried about you," she said.

"So let him worry," Dean said. He sat down at the computer console and tapped the screen to switch it on. It flashed on, the greeting written in oversized, pink Chinese characters. "God damn it, Kaylee," he muttered.

"What did she do?" River asked.

"Messin' with the computer settings again," Dean said, and then to the computer, "Would you speak English to me, please? Jesus."

The screen flickered obediently and transformed.

" _Thank_ you," Dean said.

He dug for information on the Cortex: anything strange, anything that indicated supernatural activity. The Alliance censored the news feeds pretty carefully, but they couldn't censor what they didn't know what they were looking for, and Dean found it all—mysterious cattle disappearances, bizarre strings of murders, unexplained disappearances. There was more out there than he'd expected, and his stomach twisted, thinking of all the people he could've saved in a year, all the people who'd died instead.

"Dean," River said, breaking his concentration.

He blinked, looked over at her. "Huh?"

"I found something for you," River said.

"Oh yeah?" Dean said. "You got some more of those gummy things I like?"

"No," River said. She handed him a computer printout, the little squares of paper the ship's computer produced.

"What is this," Dean said, still looking at her, not down at what she'd given him.

"Hacked into the Alliance database," River said. "They keep records. Read it."

"They keep—oh God," Dean said, and stood up, turned toward the doorway. He was afraid—he thought he knew what it was, and he was afraid of it; he didn't want River to see his face. Pulse jumping, he looked down at the paper.

It was Sam's obituary.

"Oh God," Dean said again, and put one hand out, bracing himself against the wall while he read. His eyes skipped down the page, catching fragments, the parts that mattered: Samuel J. Winchester, 86, professor of anthropology and folklore, beloved wife of fifty-six years, three children, five grand-children, one great-grandchild—and Christ, Sam had named one of his sons after Dean, and it was like being stabbed in the gut, seeing it all laid out like that, the entirety of Sam's life, every year he'd lived without Dean.

"Why are you showing this to me now," Dean said, the words tearing from him. He turned, slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor. He felt—he didn't know how he felt.

"You're ready for it," River said.

"He was—River, he was my—oh God, _Sam_ ," he said, and buried his face in one hand, the other still clutching the printout. "He was—it sounds like he was happy, though, don't you think?"

"He missed you," River said. "But I think he was happy."

"Do you—" Dean's voice cracked, and he gave up trying to speak, then. River came over to him and put her arms around him, and sat there with him while he cried.

He hid in his bunk for the rest of the day, his abandoned room in the passenger dorms. He lay down on the dusty bed and listened to the heavy silence. His first weeks on the ship, the whirring of the engine had made him crazy, a constant rumble in the background. Now he didn't notice it unless he was really paying attention, or unless it had been turned off entirely. He noticed its absence.

He wasn't mourning; he just needed time to think, alone with the quiet space inside his own skull. What broke in him was relief, not sorrow. It broke clean and washed over him. He'd thought about it a lot, what Sam had done after Dean vanished; worried that Sam would spend the rest of his life searching, pointlessly, alone with the Impala and his own grief. But he hadn't: he'd gone back to school, gotten married, had babies, and knowing it burned hot joy into Dean's belly. And a small, hard regret that he hadn't been there to see it.

He lay there for hours, through the distant commotion of the ramp being lowered and raised, through Simon yelling at Jayne for getting shot again and Jayne's sheepish reply, through Kaylee tapping at his door and telling him it was time for dinner.

"Not hungry," he called. "Just go ahead and eat without me."

"You sure?" Kaylee asked. "There's fresh _bao_..."

He heard bootsteps in the hallway, and then Mal's voice. "He still in there?"

"Won't come out, Cap'n," Kaylee said.

"The problem is that you're _askin'_ ," Mal said. "Run along and eat, now." Something scraped across the door, and the latch mechanism jiggled, the bolt rattling against the frame.

Dean rolled his eyes and got up to let Mal in. The man would probably stand out there all night, trying to jimmy the lock. He slid the door open.

"Can I come in," Mal said.

"Yeah," Dean said, shrugging.

Mal stepped inside the room and slid the door shut behind him. "So," he said.

"So," Dean said. He leaned back against the wall, watching the hard line of Mal's jaw, the creased lines beside his eyes. He was tired, and trying to hide it.

"River told me what she gave you," Mal said, and scowled. "I could throttle that girl—"

"No," Dean said. "I'm, uh. I'm glad she showed me."

Mal sighed. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Dean said. He hooked his fingers in Mal's gun belt and tugged him close, shut his eyes at the feel of Mal's lips on his throat. "It's good. It seems like—I think he was happy. He—it was what I wanted for him, and he wouldn't do it cause of me, but." He swallowed hard. "He's dead, Mal."

"I know," Mal said. He ran his hands up Dean's back, soothing.

Dean said, "I wanna start hunting again."

"Hunting—you mean ghosts," Mal said.

"Yup," Dean said.

"No," Mal said.

Dean snorted. "I'm not gonna back down on this one. I take orders, and I do what you tell me to, but I'm not—I'm gonna do this."

Mal rubbed his nose behind Dean's ear, his breath warm. "Okay."

Dean pulled back, surprised. "Okay?"

"I'm tired. I don't feel like arguin'. You're too stubborn."

"You're learning," Dean said.

"Let's go eat," Mal said. "There's _bao_."

"I sure do like me some _bao_ ," Dean said.

He kept it on the down-low for a few weeks, trying to work out the logistics. The basics would be easy: he could wheedle a few shotguns from Jayne, buy rock salt and sage, chalk, silver bullets. It was the rare stuff that would be hard, the goat's teeth, the lamb's blood, cat bones, the kind of things he and Dad had accumulated over years and that sat in the bottom of the Impala's trunk, used rarely but vital when they were. And God only knew what else he would need—Dean was sure there were things on the outer moons that he'd never hunted, things that probably hadn't even _existed_ back on Earth, and it might turn out that none of his old tricks worked and he'd have to learn everything anew.

He started amassing things, kept them in a metal trunk in Mal's closet. After Glaucus was Long Dragon; after Long Dragon, they headed to Erlang for a jewel heist, and in the market there, Dean bought a pickled monkey's head, a set of three silver knives, and something that the shopkeeper called "demon powder" without explaining what it was. That night, Mal went digging around in the closet for his extra pair of boots and came out holding the monkey's head, its wrinkled face sneering inside its glass jar.

"What in _wan shu de di yu_ is this," Mal said.

"Guess I shouldn't have left it there," Dean said sheepishly.

"You'll be the death of me," Mal said.

"C'mere and let's find out," Dean said.

That was the easy part, gathering stuff. The second part was going to be harder, and also, it was going to _suck_.

He went to talk to River. Simon was in the cockpit with her, playing with the baby and laughing. They all quieted when Dean came into the doorway, and sat there, looking at him.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh, River, you got a minute?"

"It's time for Miriam's nap anyway," Simon said, standing up. "I'll leave you to it." He smiled at Dean as he left, and Dean smiled back, grateful. He and Simon didn't have a damn thing in common, but they got along well enough, now that Simon had stopped worrying that Dean was going to steal Kaylee away.

"Thinking about flying," River said.

"You got it," Dean said. He sat down in the chair Simon had just abandoned, picked up the Stegosaurus from the console, still wet with Miriam's drool.

"Did you tell Mal yet?" River asked.

"No," Dean said. "What? You know I didn't."

"Okay," River said. "I'll teach you." She punched some buttons on her console and stood up.

"What, now?" Dean asked.

"Sure," River said. "Auto-pilot. Still two days from Tanqueray."

"Wait, you've got _auto-pilot_? Why the hell are you up here all the time," Dean asked.

"I like it here," River said.

"Goddamn space dementia," Dean muttered. "Fine, okay, what are we doing."

"You'll take Inara's shuttle," River said. "Right? You can learn there."

"I don't know why I ever bother having a conversation with you," Dean said, "I could just sit down in my room and fuckin' _think_ in your direction."

"It's because I'm so pretty," River said, skipping across the grating toward the door.

Dean got up and followed her down the hall. "Mal keeps saying I'm a bad influence on you."

River sighed. "They all still think I'm crazy. Don't expect me to have a personality." She shoved open the doors of the shuttle. It was dark inside, musty, still strewn with some of Inara's things—thick fabric hangings, a hairbrush she forgot. Dean was surprised Mal hadn't cleared it all out and stuck it in a trunk somewhere. Like under their bed.

"This thing's freakin' huge," he said, peering around the shuttle's interior.

"Normal-sized for a shuttle," River said, and shoved aside a thick wall of cloth. The cockpit was on the other side, and Dean stepped into it, feeling a little queasy at the sight of all that empty space and the notion that he was going to have to _fly_ through it.

"I gotta be insane," he muttered, looking at the wide black curve of the sky, the distant shine of planets.

"It's wonderful," River said, beaming. " _Hao mei ah_."

"Yeah, you won't be sayin' that after I puke on your shoes," Dean said.

"You won't," River said.

"Oh, now you see the future, too?"

River rolled her eyes. "Sit," she said, swiveling out the console chair.

Dean sat. He put his hands on the wheel. He closed his eyes for a moment and pretended he was sitting in the Impala, about to reach up with his right hand and turn the key in the ignition, feel the engine's familiar rumble shaking loose change in its tray.

"Let's start," River said, interrupting his reverie.

He opened his eyes. "What's first," he said.

***

It was a week before River decided he was ready to do any actual flying. He brought it up at dinner that night, hoping that having other people around would keep Mal from going all bug-eyed and twitchy.

"So, I'm gonna start hunting again," Dean said, and used his chopsticks to pluck a boiled potato off Mal's plate.

"Huh. Huntin' _what_ ," Jayne said.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Kaylee said. "Huntin' ghosts and stuff, right? Like what he did when I got took. And don't even say there's no such thing, Simon, you ought to know better."

"I didn't say anything!" Simon said, busy spooning peas into Miriam's scowling face.

"Thought it, though," River said, and ducked to avoid the pea that Simon threw at her.

Dean glanced at Mal, but he was poking at his green beans, acting like he wasn't paying any attention at all.

"How are you thinking about doing this," Zoe said.

It was the question Dean had been waiting for. "I need a shuttle," he said. "So you can drop me off, come pick me up on the way back. I'd need my own ship to really get things done, but that doesn't seem real likely."

"And how are you plannin' on payin' for all this," Mal said. "Fuel costs money, and we ain't got a lot of that lyin' around waitin' for somebody to spend it."

"Rim folk pay," Jayne said. "I don't know about them fancy inner planets, but this far out in the black, people believe in it. I seen things. You get rid of things, they'll pay. Maybe not money, but it ain't like the Captain here always gets us money, neither."

"I hate to admit it, but he's right," Simon said. "Rim settlers are superstitious—don't give me that look, Kaylee, I'm not saying they don't have reason to be."

"Aww, you're so sweet," Kaylee said, leaning over to kiss Simon's cheek.

"No kissin' at the dinner table," Mal said.

"Oh yeah, like you're one to talk," Jayne said.

"Shut your _ni ne ge da zui_ ," Mal said. "I'll talk to you later," he said to Dean.

"Aye aye," Dean said.

"Miriam hates peas," River said.

"Thank you for alerting me to that," Simon said.

"Pie," Zoe said, and got up from the table.

After dinner, Dean helped Jayne with the dishes, and then scrubbed out the vegetable drawers, and then sat in the engine room and played with Miriam while Kaylee worked on the containment filaments. It was late by the time he went to Mal's bunk, but Mal was still awake, stretched out on the bed with the book he'd been reading, a chapter or two every night before Dean managed to tempt him away.

"You wanted to talk," Dean said. He stood, running his fingers over the bald head of Mal's Buddha statue.

Mal closed his book and tossed it aside. "I wish to God you would come to me with these things, 'stead of spreadin' it all over the ship first," he said.

Dean touched the Buddha's little, blind eyes. "I thought you'd say no."

" _Ben dan_ ," Mal said. He sighed, his hands open on his thighs, palms up. "You should know by now that I can't say no to you."

"Oh yeah? How about if I said I wanted to tie you up and have my way with you," Dean said, smirking.

"Might not say no even then," Mal said, and the slow smile on his face had Dean clutching at the edge of the desk, his mouth dry with longing. Mal saw it, and his smile deepened, his eyelids going half-mast. "Come here."

"Wait," Dean said. "Can I—I want to take Inara's shuttle. And I'll still go on jobs, if you need me, but I want to hunt. Mostly."

"Okay," Mal said.

"Okay? It's that easy? You're not gonna argue with me about this?"

"No," Mal said. "I told you. I can't say no." He slid his suspenders off his shoulders, started unbuttoning his shirt. "Now come here."

Dean ended up tying Mal to the bed with his own suspenders and sucking bites onto his hipbones until Mal begged for it, sprawled flushed and panting on the sheets.

The actual flying didn't happen for a while. They had a job transporting water from Midvale to Sumida, and then a few days after that, planetside on Sumida, while Mal bickered out the details of their next job. Dean spent a lot of time wandering around the marketplace, looking at silver charms, things in jars he couldn't even identify.

Thursday, they left for Persephone, and River found Dean after breakfast and said, "It's time."

Dean paused, soapy bowl in hand. "Uh. Now? Really?"

"Now," River said, grinning.

Dean's mouth tasted sour as he lowered himself into the single chair in the shuttle's cockpit. They were passing Whitefall, and it hung huge and luminous out the starboard windows. The universe looked a lot bigger now that Dean was about to fly out into it. He took a deep breath and wrapped his hands around the wheel. "Not much like my car," he said.

"You'll like this too," River said. "Okay. Turn it on."

"Turn—okay," Dean said, and flipped the switch that cut on the engine.

He glided it out slow, lifting the shuttle away from the main body of Serenity and skimming it outward to hover alongside the ship. His hands were shaking, a slight rattle against the wheel, his knuckles banging.

"Don't worry," River said, her hands light on Dean's shoulders. "You're doing fine."

"I'm flying a _spaceship_ ," Dean said.

"Only a shuttle," River said.

"If that's supposed to make me feel better, it's not working," Dean said.

"Go up," River said. "Now set a course for Bellerophon."

Dean frowned at the eight billion tiny buttons on the console in front of him. "The red one, right?"

"That's right," River said, and Dean reached out to punch the button.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't that hard, once he got the hang of it. His takeoffs were okay, but his landings really sucked for a few weeks, until he learned the size of the shuttle, unconsciously knew the length of it, the breadth of its wings. Whenever they were planetside, he practiced landing the thing on whatever clear ground was available; in the black, he worked on docking.

The first time Mal rode with him—a quick practice flight between Talos and Brennan on Shivon Moon—he scowled the whole time, arms folded, but when Dean settled them back in Serenity's docking cradle, Mal heaved a sigh and said, "Not bad, I reckon."

"Not bad? That's all I get? Jesus," Dean said.

"Well. Not bad," Mal said again.

" _Hun dan_ ," Dean said.

"You got a foul mouth," Mal said.

"Get outta my shuttle," Dean said, patting the console affectionately. Nothing would ever replace the Impala, but he'd gotten to be pretty fond of the shuttle.

"Tell me what to do on my own boat," Mal muttered, shoving past into the main body of the shuttle. Dean had cleared out the rest of Inara's things and started hauling in his hunting gear: shotguns, oily rags, crates of rock salt, the monkey's head, all the other weird things he'd bought at markets on a dozen moons. Dean followed Mal out of the cockpit and watched as he peered at the latest addition, a little jar of crushed butterfly wings. "Inara would have a fit if she saw what you've done to her shuttle."

"It's my shuttle now," Dean said. "She left."

"You're leavin'," Mal said. He picked up the jar and turned it in his hand. "You ain't gonna be around much anymore, I reckon."

"Maybe not as much," Dean said. "But I'm not—Mal. I'm not leaving."

Mal shrugged, set the jar back down. "Almost time for dinner," he said.

Dean rolled his eyes. As much as he hated being pestered about his feelings, Mal's stubborn uncommunicativeness really made him crazy sometimes. "Yeah, okay, fine, let's go eat."

"Dean," Mal said, and rubbed at his chin, grimacing. " _Tien xiao de_. You got no idea what you do to me."

"Maybe you should tell me," Dean said, stepping in.

"You're shameless," Mal said. "It's dinnertime."

"I know," Dean said. He wrapped his arms around Mal's waist and pulled him close, pressed wet kisses along the side of Mal's neck. "Simon's cooking tonight. I don't wanna eat that."

"Huh," Mal said, turning his head to give Dean better access.

They fucked right there on the floor of the shuttle, beneath the watchful gaze of the monkey's head: Mal's hands down Dean's pants and Dean's hands up Mal's shirt, and Mal's quiet groaning when Dean slid down to suck on his cock.

He found his first job by accident. They were on Rackham, one of Newhall's moons, trying to get the local crime boss to give them trade rights. Things weren't going well. Mal and Zoe had been in negotiations for three days straight, and Mal came back to the ship every night scowling and rubbing at the tight muscles at the base of his neck.

Dean felt goddamn useless. He hung out in the engine room until Kaylee told him to quit bothering her. River was with Mal and Zoe, playing bodyguard; Jayne and Simon were boring; Dean turned to jerking off for entertainment, but even that couldn't keep him busy for more than a couple of hours. The ship was too small, and it was making him claustrophobic. He ended up disobeying Mal's orders and leaving Serenity to wander around the docks, looking for some sort of distraction, maybe a good bar fight or something. He was restless, itchy inside his skin, a low-key twitch and shiver that made him feel like there were bugs crawling on him.

He was haggling with a man over the price of eggs when he heard the noisy market crowd go quiet, and turned to see something hopping down the street behind him—it was a man, his arms held strangely, at a stiff angle from the elbows, and his eyes were closed. People shrank out of its path, murmuring.

"Who the hell is that," Dean said.

The shopkeeper shrugged. " _Wo bu zhi dao_. Drug fiend, like to be."

Dean didn't know much about Rackham, but he'd seen people smoking poppy right out in broad daylight, like it was nothing, so the shopkeeper was probably right—but still. Dean abandoned the scrambled eggs idea and pushed out past the wide-eyed bystanders, followed the guy as he turned down an alley and out onto the main thoroughfare through the docks. He'd never seen anything like it, and okay, he was curious—the guy seemed harmless enough, but there was definitely something weird about him, something that made Dean think it wasn't just a drugged-up hobo trying to scare people—

And then the guy paused, his nostrils flaring, and wove through the crowd, making a beeline for the little boy playing jacks by the side of a building. Before Dean could do more than open his mouth to shout a warning, the man had grabbed the kid, snapped his neck, and was bent over the limp body, inhaling deeply—and Christ, it wasn't a man at all, it was a _thing_ , it was some sort of crazy vampire thing killing people at the Rackham Docks, and what were the fuckin' odds of Dean being there to see it.

Dean's hand flew to his pistol, but he forced himself to lower it again. He was a good twenty feet away, and the road was so crowded with people that he'd never get a clear shot; and anyway, opening fire in a marketplace was probably the stupidest thing he could do, him with his forged ID that could pass a casual examination but not the sort of detailed scan the Alliance would do if they caught him firing shots in public. He knew all that, but his fingers were still twitching, adrenaline kicking hot through every vein. He wanted to riddle the son of a bitch with holes.

He didn't need to do anything, though: a woman shouted, " _Wo de er zi_!" and starting beating at the thing's shoulders, trying to drag it away. It snapped her neck, too, breathing in and then dropping her like an empty sack; and then the market cops were on it, firing shots into its back, its head.

The street dissolved into chaos, people screaming and running every which way, dropping things. Dean was pushed forward by the crowd, toward the—whatever it was—and then the big guy in front of him toppled over, and Dean was face-to-face with the thing, its face marked with a few indentations but otherwise showing no sign of the bullets Dean had _seen_ fired into it, its mouth hanging open; and then it shoved past him and down the road, hopping away.

The three cops were dead, limp in a pile, still clutching their handguns.

"Sweet baby Jesus," Dean said.

"You got that right," a man said, passing by.

Dean went back to the ship. Simon was doing guard duty in the cargo bay, bouncing Miriam on his knee and making stupid faces at her. He reached for his gun when he heard Dean's footfalls on the ramp, but drew his hand back again when he saw who it was.

"I thought you were buying groceries," Simon said.

"Yeah, well, so did I," Dean said.

Simon raised his eyebrows. "So why are—what's wrong."

Dean shrugged, pulled a crate over and sat down on it. Miriam reached out for him, her little fist grabbing at his amulet. He tugged it over his head and gave it to her, and she promptly stuck it in her mouth, gurgling.

"She'll choke," Simon said reproachfully, tangling his fingers in the cord.

"She's too smart for that," Dean said. He sighed, ran one hand over his head. "I saw somethin'. At the docks."

"Oh?" Simon said.

"It was, uh. Hopping. Like a frickin' bunny rabbit. And it had its eyes closed, and then it killed a kid and was _sniffin'_ at him. Some sort of psychic vampirism, I guess. You know about anything like that?"

" _Jiang Shi_ ," Simon said, and then shook his head, frowning. "But that's—it's just _gu shi_ , Dean. Just children's tales."

"But you've heard of it, then," Dean said, leaning forward. "I saw one killing people in the market, okay? You need to tell me everything you know."

"It's really just superstitious nonsense," Simon said. "They're sort of like zombies. According to the stories, they kill people and absorb their life-essence, whatever that means."

"Yeah," Dean said, "yeah, that's exactly what it was doing. Shit! I shoulda followed it, God only knows where it's gotten to by now."

"Are you sure—you didn't smoke any poppy, did you?" Simon asked.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Doc, that's exactly what I was doing. You got me. I'm high as a goddamn kite." Miriam spat out his amulet and it tumbled to the floor. He bent to pick it up, wiped it dry on his pants. "You wouldn't know how to kill this _Jiang Shi_ , would you?"

"Er. Not as such," Simon said. "Although if you, ah, capture it, I could probably run some scans on it—"

"Thanks but no thanks," Dean said. "I think I'll handle this the old-fashioned way." He stood up.

"And what's that," Simon said.

"Probably chop off its head with a machete," Dean said, and grinned at the look on Simon's face. "I'm gonna look on the Cortex. Holler if you need me."

"Will do," Simon said weakly.

The Cortex didn't have much, just stories written for kids, and half of them littered with Chinese words that the computer refused to translate for him. Maybe if River had been there, he'd have been able to find some useful; but he'd never been any good with computers, and he was only about as literate in Chinese as a nine-year-old kid. Plus he hated doing research. He wasn't _bad_ at it, but it bored the crap out of him, and after everything with Jess, he'd mostly turned over the research part to Sam, who loved it like a fat kid loves cake. But he didn't have Sam—hadn't had Sam for a long time—and River was off somewhere being psychic, and so Dean sat there at the computer console and tried to remember if the little lopsided smiley face part made the character mean "ocean" or "mother."

He sat there for an hour, listening to Miriam shriek happily in the cargo bay, watching the sun track slowly across the sky, heading into mid-afternoon. He sat back, finally, turned off the Cortex screen, stretched his arms over his head and listened to his vertebrae crack. He hadn't found anything more than what Simon had told him. There was something bugging him, though, swimming right beneath the surface of his conscious mind, something about high school and cheesy martial arts movies—

And then he had it, the memory turning over beautifully inside his brain. He got up from the console and went to rifle around in Mal's bunk. He needed yellow paper, a brush and ink, and some sheer, dumb luck.

Tracking the _Jiang Shi_ wasn't as hard as he was afraid it would be. People at the docks were delighted to tell him all about the weird thing they'd seen and exactly how many cops it had killed. He followed the trail through the market and into the warehouse district, where a teenaged boy told him, in vivid, gory detail, all about how he'd seen a hobo dragging a corpse into an abandoned warehouse.

It sounded to Dean like the thing had overeaten and needed some time to sleep it off, but he wasn't gonna ride on that assumption and find it awake and waiting for him. He crept into the warehouse, pulling out the machete he'd tucked into a canvas bag—it probably wouldn't stop the thing, but losing its head might slow it down a bit, and that was all that Dean needed.

The inside of the warehouse was dark, and cooler than it was outside. A few hints of light crept in through cracks in the ceiling, enough that Dean could see the vague outlines of huge stacks of crates, but it wasn't enough that he felt comfortable just carelessly barging around until he found the _Jiang Shi_.

He edged around the first large stack, straining his eyes in the dark, and promptly knocked his boot into something sitting on the floor, which rang loudly, hollow metal. Dean cursed himself silently and froze, waiting, but nothing stirred; there was no movement, no sound in the whole warehouse.

He crept toward the second stack of crates, listening. Outside, he heard men yelling, and the distant sounds of ships taking off and landing. Maybe the _Jiang Shi_ had left already, tempted to fresh hunting grounds; although Dean would be surprised if the thing could eat much more in one day. Although who knew how it operated. Sure as hell wasn't like any vampire Dean had ever heard of.

It grabbed him from behind: no warning, just a hand on his shoulder and another one on his neck. He ducked and spun, dumb instinct, and swung blindly with his machete. It rung like a bell and bounced away— _fuck_ , the thing had skin like iron, and how the fuck was he supposed to cut through that?

Dean took a few steps backward, putting some distance between himself and the _Jiang Shi_. He could barely see it in the dim light, just the vague swinging motion of its arm, coming toward him with every intention to snap his neck. It seemed like that was the only move in its arsenal, though, and it wasn't like the thing could _see_ him, anyway, its eyes closed like that—maybe if he got behind it he'd be able to—

He was moving before he'd finished the thought, darting off to the side and then behind, and he didn't think he'd made any noise, but the damn thing was whirling around to face him again, its eyes still shut.

"What the hell," Dean muttered.

It focused in on him when he spoke, its nostrils flaring, like it could—shit, like it was _smelling his breath_ , and Dean inhaled as hard as he could and held his breath, testing the theory. He took a few steps to the side, but the thing didn't follow him; it kept looking toward where he'd been standing, sniffing the air, its face moving side to side a little. That was it, then: as long as he didn't exhale, it couldn't find him.

He let all the air out of his lungs and watched as the _Jiang Shi_ swung around toward him again. He took a deep breath and dropped to the ground, rolled, leapt up again behind the thing and threw one arm around its neck. With his other hand, he fumbled in his pocket, searching—and there it was, the little scrap of yellow paper, and he slapped it onto the _Jiang Shi's_ forehead.

The thing was bucking with all its might, flailing with both arms and trying to reach him, but it couldn't get him; and then the spell written on the paper kicked in, and the _Jiang Shi_ went limp, slumping to the ground.

Dean let its body drop. "Jesus Christ," he said, and wiped his sleeve across his forehead. He was breathing hard, sweat damp beneath his arms and across his back. He toed at the _Jiang Shi_ 's corpse; it seemed dead enough, which was fine with him. He bent down and retrieved the scrap of paper. Probably nobody would care when they found it dead—it looked human enough, and men died all the time in ports like Rackham, and hardly anybody ever cared.

He thought of Sam, then, an unexpected rush of memory that had him grinding the heel of his hand into his eye socket: Sammy at ten, holding his first shotgun, his wide, delighted eyes turning to Dean for approval, waiting for Dean to say, _You did it, Sammy, good job._

"How'd I do, Sammy," he murmured. "Good job?"

Nothing answered.

He walked back to the ship. Evening was falling, and vendors were packing up their stalls, heading back home to warm houses and dinner. The docks were quiet too, most everybody done trading for the day, and still early enough in the evening that most people hadn't started drinking yet.

Mal had taken over guard duty from Simon. He stood up when Dean came up the ramp, his pistol hanging loose in one hand. "Where you been," he said.

"Killing a _Jiang Shi_ ," Dean said, laying it all out there.

"Huh," Mal said. He shoved his pistol back in his gun belt. "I didn't think those was real."

"Apparently they are," Dean said. Christ, he was tired. "I miss dinner?"

"Not yet," Mal said. He wrapped one arm around Dean's waist. "Jayne's makin' potatoes."

"I like potatoes," Dean said.

Mal tucked his other hand in the pocket of Dean's jacket. "You feel like tellin' me what happened?"

Dean shook his head, closing his eyes for a moment before he opened them again. "No. Maybe later. Right now I just—I wanna eat some potatoes and take a shower, okay?"

"Okay," Mal said. "I'm a patient man."

Dean snorted.

Later that night, they sat on Mal's bed, the both of them with their backs against the wall, knees bent, feet planted on the mattress. Dean told the whole story: what he'd seen, what Simon told him, the moment he'd remembered how zombies were killed in the Hong Kong martial arts films he used to watch.

"So you killed it based on somethin' you saw in a film that was made five hundred years ago," Mal said.

"Uh, basically," Dean said.

"You're a _yan jin xia le de_ idiot," Mal said.

"I thought it would work! I was pretty sure," Dean said.

"That ain't good enough," Mal said, frowning. "You can't go around _guessin'_ at things like that—quickest way to get killed."

"Yeah, well, it's part of the job," Dean said. "There isn't always hard evidence about these things. Sometimes you just gotta take a stab in the dark and hope for the best."

"I don't like it," Mal said.

"You don't—Christ almighty, Mal, you've spent the last three days talking to the fuckin' _yakuza_." Dean got off the bed and kicked his boots off, stripped off his shirt. "You don't get to lecture me about doing stupid shit."

"I had a sister," Mal said. "Back on Shadow."

"You—what," Dean said. He paused, hand at the fly of his pants, and stared at Mal. He knew that Mal didn't like talking about his past life, but he'd thought he'd learned all the important parts, but this was—shit, he hadn't had a _clue_. "Did you—I didn't know that."

"I don't think on it much," Mal said. "This was years ago. Before the war."

Dean sat on the edge of the bed, staring at Mal's face. Mal wasn't looking at him—was staring at his own hands, clasping his knees. "Your sister," Dean said.

"She was five years older than me," Mal said. "Taught me how to ride a horse, birth a stubborn calf. Alliance came to Shadow when I was eighteen, nineteen. And those _gui_ purplebellies raped my sister, tossed her body on the back porch for our ma to find." He slid his hands down his shins and back up to his knees. "I stopped bein' myself for a while there. Ended up volunteerin' for a war there weren't no way we could win."

"Christ, Mal," Dean said.

"Anyway, the point is—I know it ain't unusual to do some gorram stupid things things when you lost someone. I just hope to God—tell me that ain't what's goin' on with you, Dean. I don't want you runnin' around hopin' to get killed."

"I'm not—that's not what I'm doing," Dean said. "Shit, I hunted the whole time Sammy was away at school, and then I kept hunting after he came back—it's not something I'm doing just 'cause he's gone. This is what I _do_ , Mal."

"Okay," Mal said. He exhaled hard. "Just—I'm askin' you to be careful."

"It's my fuckin' middle name," Dean said. He unzipped his pants and crawled all the way onto the bed, pushed Mal's knees out of the way and straddled his lap. "I'm sorry about your sister," he said. He kissed the side of Mal's face, the worried line between his eyebrows.

"It was a long time ago," Mal said. "You on my lap for a reason?"

"Well, I was hoping you'd stick your hand down my pants, but if you're not interested—"

"Now you're just speakin' nonsense," Mal said, and set about doing his best to make Dean lose his fucking mind.

***

It took him a while to figure out exactly what to look for on the Cortex, but after a few jobs he had it down to a science, knew exactly which reports to check, how to dig useful information out of the watered-down Alliance intel stream that River hacked into for him. He killed a poltergeist on Santo, exorcised a demon on Yuki—easy jobs, and it was great, it was all going fine, easing him back into the swing of things. Between hunting, looking for hunts, and pulling jobs whenever Mal asked him to, Dean was keeping busy. It gave him less time to think, less time to miss Sam.

In May, he found a hunt on Mirador, people disappearing mysteriously in one of the farming communities there. They were passing by on their way to Kingare, and it was easy enough to convince Mal to let him leave with the shuttle.

"It should be easy," Dean said. "Take me a day or two, tops. You can swing by and pick me up on your way back."

"Tuesday afternoon," Mal said. "No later. You best be waitin'."

"Jesus, you fuss like a woman," Dean said, and neatly caught the greasy rag Mal chucked at his head.

He landed the shuttle up in the hills, hidden behind a rock formation and far away from any roads. He didn't want to take any chances. Mirador was a quiet moon, mostly farming, the odd factory here and there—but you never knew, out on the Rim. People got desperate.

It was a long, dusty hike down to Corbin, and Dean was sweating by the time he got there. It was early autumn on Mirador, and the sun was warm on his bare forearms after he stripped off his jacket. Corbin was a good-sized town, surrounded by lush, irrigated fields, and the squat, prefab metal houses that Dean had seen on a dozen worlds.

The town was surprisingly deserted for a Sunday afternoon, just a few people here and there, hurrying along with their heads bent toward the street, and no children. All the houses were closed up, curtains drawn, and it was quiet: nobody laughing or shouting. It gave the town the eerie feel of a place already half-dead.

It was fucking weird, was what it was. He wandered around some more, his boots stirring up dust from the road. Most of the houses had a weird, squiggly symbol written on them in white chalk. Dean didn't recognize it, but he wrote it down on a scrap of paper; he'd scan it through the Cortex when he got back to the shuttle.

He passed the post office on his way back out of town. There was a woman sitting outside, scribbling on an envelope; she looked up when he walked over, and straightened her back, glaring at him.

"Good afternoon to you," Dean said, at his absolute politest.

" _Ni wei shen me lai le_?" she asked.

"Oh, um," Dean said, and sucked in air between his teeth. His Chinese still wasn't great, and his accent was worse. " _Wo men dai de bu chang_."

The woman relaxed visible at that, and straightened her shawl. "Well. Good. Best to be passin' on, then. Ain't the best time to be here in Corbin."

"Oh? And why's that?" Dean asked.

The woman glanced to her left, down the deserted street. "Can't say for sure. People keep disappearing—we find the bodies a couple days later, all chewed on and bloody. Something's eatin' 'em. Can't say what— _yao guai, you ling_..."

"Eatin' people? Is that so?" Dean asked. "And you got no idea what it might be."

"None," the woman said, her eyes darting down to the envelopes in her lap.

Dean knew she was lying— _knew_ it, hard conviction in his belly, but not what gave him that knowledge, or what he could say to get her to tell him the truth. "Well, best to stay out of trouble's way, I reckon," he said, and tipped an imaginary hat at her. "You have a good day now, ma'am."

" _Zai jian_ ," the woman said.

Dean went back to the shuttle, frustrated. He was used to having witnesses to talk to—reluctant witnesses, sure, but _somebody_. He had the symbol, at least. He ran it through the Cortex, and the console screen flashed over, words scrolling up into view.

It was Sanskrit, a sigil for protection against demonic forces—and good, that was something, he could work with that. "Tell me about Hindu demons that eat people," he said, and the computer brought up a list of fifteen or twenty articles—it was a fuckin' lot of them, at any rate. Dean sighed and got to it.

He wasn't sure, but it sounded like it was a _Pishacha_ , with the flesh-eating. Dean hated things that ate people. It was always messy, and he usually ended up covered in guts or something. Normally he'd feel obligated to do more research, poke around Corbin some more, but it looked like all Hindu demons could be banished the same way: read them a certain mantra, and they'd fuck off for good.

The Cortex was kind to him, for once: it pulled up the correct mantra, _and_ a sound file with the correct pronunciation. Dean practiced until he got it right, the computer beeping sternly at him every time he fucked up; and then he waited for nightfall.

It was only mid-afternoon by then. He sent River a message, saying he was fine and he'd be ready for them to pick him up on Tuesday. The shuttle had a supply of freeze-dried food packs, and he ate one of those, mixed with a little hot water to soften it up.

The sun set eventually, and Dean headed back down to Corbin. He didn't know exactly how he was gonna find the _Pishacha_ , but given how the whole town was locked up and hiding, the thing would probably jump at the chance to make a meal out of whatever was readily available.

He sauntered through the darkened streets, avoiding the occasional pool of light cast by a streetlamp. Nobody was out. After a while, he got that prickling sensation that meant he was being watched, and he wrapped his hand around the butt of his handgun, waiting.

The demon slid out of the shadows ahead of him, its eyes bulging red out of its face. It said something that Dean didn't understand, its long tongue curling, and bobbed its head toward him, dark lips curling back to show its double rows of teeth. It had a thick length of intestines roped around one of its hands, dripping blood onto the street.

Dean rolled his eyes: typical demon posturing, and nothing he hadn't seen before. Maybe it would terrify somebody who hadn't wasted hundreds of the sons of bitches, but Dean wasn't real concerned. He slid his gun out of his pocket and pointed it at the _Pishacha_ 's face, and it recoiled, hissing. The bullets were consecrated—Christian magic, but it seemed a divine blessing worked on this sort of evil, too.

"Okay, you ready for this? It's gonna be fun," Dean said, and started to recite the mantra that he'd so carefully memorized.

The demon said something else, and then it rushed him, an insanely fast blur of motion, and it knocked the gun out of Dean's hand. He dodged away from it, both heading for his weapon and trying to get out of the path of the demon's attack, but he was too slow. Its claws caught him across the ribs, four long, painful gouges, and he grabbed at his side, wincing when his hand slicked through blood.

The _Pishacha_ whirled around, dropping the intestines it had been holding and crouching down, angling for another attack. Dean's gun was ten feet away, resting against the side of a building, and he dove for it, landing hard on the dirt, but he came up with the gun in his hand, and he fired a shot into the demon's belly and watched as it writhed, shrieking.

"Hurts, doesn't it," Dean said. Lights were flicking on in the houses around him, alerted by the demon's howls and the noise of the gun firing. He didn't have much time. He finished the mantra hastily, tripping over some of the words, but it worked well enough—it seemed to work, because the demon shriveled like it was being sucked dry, and then it crumbled into dust.

The door of one of the houses banged open, and a man appeared, holding a shotgun. "You there! I'm calling the patrol!"

" _Qu ni de_ ," Dean muttered, and bolted for it, still clutching his wounded side.

His walk back to the shuttle _sucked_. He wasn't bleeding too hard, but he'd still lost enough that he felt kind of light-headed, and every step tugged painfully at the claw-marks. He cut off his shirt once he was safely in the shuttle. It didn't look too bad; the cuts were pretty shallow, just hurt a lot. He cleaned them, disinfected, put a bandage on and taped himself up. He'd be in pain for a few days, but nothing major. It had been an easy job, really—simple solution, no entanglements with the locals, and the goddamn _Pishacha_ taken care of. Nothing left for him to do but wait for _Serenity_ to come back and pick him up.

They didn't come.

He spent all day Tuesday hanging around outside the shuttle, waiting to hear the familiar roar of the engines. By dusk, he was irritated but not too worried—it was possible they'd just gotten held up on the job, and while he didn't really want to be stuck on Mirador any longer than was absolutely necessary, he knew that things rarely went as planned.

But when he went inside to send a wave to River, there was no answer.

He tried again an hour later, and an hour after that, and then he went to bed because he'd make himself crazy if he stayed up all night waiting. There was no response in the morning, or any of the fifteen other times Dean tried that day. It was possible they'd turned off the Cortex while Kaylee worked on the engine or something, but no way would they have left it off for that long.

They'd run into some sort of trouble. Dean knew it, but he couldn't do anything about it. The shuttle didn't have enough fuel cells to make it all the way to Kingare—he'd run out of gas halfway there, and then float, helpless, waiting for whatever scavenger passed by to pick him up. There was nothing he could do. He just had to wait.

They were the longest fucking days of his life. On Thursday, fed up with freeze-dried rations, he went down to Corbin to buy some food at the market. There were people in the streets again—not as many as there ought to have been, but more than there had been on Sunday, and Dean bit down on the fierce pride that gave him, that he'd been able to do some good. He bought cheese, and bread still warm from the oven; and then he loitered around the Alliance depot, hoping to hear some news about an 03 Firefly Transport. There was nothing.

Nothing came through on the Cortex either. From the newsfeeds, Kingare had been totally quiet for the last week or so: no turmoil, no murders—nothing more serious than a few bar fights.

Dean thought he might be getting an ulcer. He couldn't sleep; kept imagining the worst possible scenarios, the ship boarded by Reavers, or picked up by the Alliance; everyone dead, except him, trapped on this bullshit moon while everyone he knew got killed.

He thought about Sam, some, what Sam would say if he were there, what he'd think about all of it. It was hard to imagine Sam being there with him, though; Dean could pull up the memory of the Impala with no trouble, think of Sam slumped against the passenger door, laughing while he shook hair out of his eyes; but visualizing Sam in the shuttle with him, stuck on a terraformed moon, proved to be a lot harder. He could kind of do it. Sam would bitch about the shuttle's cramped footwell, maybe criticize Dean for his landing technique.

Truth was, Dean's life had diverged too far from what it used to be for him to be able to place Sam in it. He thought of what he'd say if Sam appeared in the shuttle with him, mysteriously, some crack in time opening up and Sam just stepping right through. _I missed you, Sammy,_ he'd say. Maybe cry a little—there was nothing goddamn wrong with that, it took a real man to be able to cry. And he'd say, _Christ, Sammy, I'm so glad you're here, I don't know what the fuck happened to the ship, they were supposed to pick me up days ago—_

And Sam would say, _Who_?

And that was it, right there: Dean didn't know how he'd explain it, how he'd tell Sam that he had a life here, now, hundreds of years away from his old life. That there was a guy he'd been fucking for a while, and hey, he was pretty fond of him; and this girl who reminded him a whole lot of Sam, right down to the freaky brain powers; and a little baby he held in his arms the day she was born. That there were people he couldn't just up and leave.

Mal had been wrong about Dean's death wish. He should have been worried when Dean _wasn't_ hunting, when he was still hoping it was all temporary. Hunting was a way for Dean to remember Sam, to honor those memories, and to get on with the rest of his life.

He let go of his grief, there in that shuttle. He'd miss Sam for the rest of his life, but sorrow wasn't all he had anymore. There were other things. Other people.

On Saturday, he heard the noise of the engines, and _Serenity_ appeared over the crest of the hill.

***

River and Mal were waiting in the cargo bay when he came out of the shuttle, and River ran up the stairs toward him, beaming, and flung herself at him.

"I can't believe you just fuckin' _left_ me there," Dean said, unwrapping River's happy arms from around his neck and wincing, the scabs along his ribs ripping a little. "What, you forgot how to fly the ship or something?"

"Ran into some trouble," Mal said.

"Yeah, I kind of figured," Dean said.

"Didn't forget how to fly," River said. "I'm sorry you worried."

Dean sighed, and slung an arm over her shoulders. "I guess I can forgive you."

They went down the stairs together. Mal was standing at the bottom, thumbs hooked in his gun belt—and he was smiling a little, a small, reluctant smile tugging at his mouth. "Reckon you're a little irritated," he said.

"A little," Dean said. "What the fuck happened? Jayne get shot again or something?"

"Alliance," River said. "They searched the boat. Wouldn't let us leave."

"Shit," Dean said. "They didn't—fuckin' Alliance. They didn't find anything, did they? What the hell were they looking for anyway?"

Mal shrugged. "Thought we were smuggling. Weren't wrong, either, but they couldn't find what we hid."

"Thank Christ," Dean said. "I thought—shit. I thought you'd been hit by Reavers or something. Although I guess this one would've heard them coming." He gave River a vigorous noogie, and she squirmed away, yelping.

"Go tell the others we're about ready to eat," Mal said to her.

She ran out of the cargo bay, calling to Simon. Dean watched her go, her hair and dress streaming behind her, all happy girl and none of what he'd heard she used to be, something broken.

When she was gone, he turned to Mal, slid one hand around the back of his neck. "I was really fuckin' worried," he said.

"I know," Mal said. "Tried to send you a wave about it, but the Alliance was blockin' all our signals. Might happen again, though; jobs go wrong, could be you'll get stuck for a time, waitin' until we can disentangle ourselves enough to come get you."

"Yeah, I know that," Dean said, "but it doesn't mean I'm not gonna worry."

"You fuss like a woman," Mal said, Dean's own words thrown back at him.

"You're rubbing off on me," Dean said.

Mal smirked.

"Not like _that_ , Jesus. You're a pervert. Although, uh. Maybe we could do that later," Dean said.

Mal ran one hand down Dean's back and cupped his ass, pulled him closer. "I'm glad you're back," he said.

Dean made a face and tried to pull away, but Mal held on to him, his other hand settling firmly on Dean's hip.

"Hey," Mal said. "I know you don't like hearin' it, and I don't particularly like sayin' it, but I think we both ought to."

"Don't think that I'm gonna get all touchy-feely—"

"I didn't ask you to," Mal said.

"Well," Dean said. He hid his grin against Mal's neck. "I guess I'm glad you managed to get away from the Alliance long enough to pick me up from that piece-of-shit moon."

"I expect you'll be grateful," Mal said.

"Maybe if you put out first," Dean said. "You think it's dinner yet?"

"I reckon so," Mal said, but it was a while longer before they moved.

THE END  



End file.
